pyraymesh 0.1.4

A library for ray-mesh intersections on triangular meshes

pyraymesh

Description

pyraymesh is a Python library for performing ray intersection and occlusion tests on 3D meshes using a Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH). The library uses the C++ library bvh for building the BVH and performing the intersection tests.

While this library is reasonably fast for simpler meshes (benchmarks coming soon), it is not as fast as Embree, espcially for larger and more complex meshes. However, it does not have any dependencies on external libraries, and is thus easier to install and use.

Installation

Install the package either by

pip install pyraymesh

or cloning the repo and using pip:

pip install .

Note that the package requires a C++ compiler to build the C++ extension.

Usage

Building the BVH

To build the BVH for a mesh:

from pyraymesh import Mesh
import numpy as np

vertices = np.array([[0, 0, 0], [1, 0, 0], [1, 1, 0], [0, 1, 0]])
faces = np.array([[0, 1, 2], [2, 3, 0]])
mesh = Mesh(vertices, faces)
mesh.build("medium")

The build method takes a string argument that specifies the BVH build type, which can be one of the following: "low", "medium" and "high". The build type determines the trade-off between build time and query time. For most cases "medium" is almost always the right choice.

Ray Intersection

To perform ray intersection tests:

ray_origin = [[0.1, 0.2, 1], [0.2, 0.1, 1]]
ray_direction = [[0, 0, -1], [0, 0, 1]]
## or 
ray_origin = [[0.1, 0.2, 1], [0.2, 0.1, 1]]
ray_direction = [0, 0, -1]  # multiple rays with same direction
## or 
ray_origin = [0.1, 0.2, 1]
ray_direction = [[0, 0, -1], [0, 0, 1]]  # multiple rays with same origin

result = mesh.intersect(ray_origin, ray_direction, tnear=0, tfar=1000)
print(result.num_hits)
print(result.coords)
print(result.tri_ids)
print(result.distances)

If you set tnear to a value greater than 0, the intersection tests will ignore any intersections that are closer than tnear. Similarly, if you set tfar to a value less than infinity, the intersection tests will ignore any intersections that are farther than tfar.

Reflections

If you want to get the reflection of the rays, add the calculate_reflections = True parameter to the intersect method:

ray_origin = [[0.1, 0.2, 1], [0.2, 0.1, 1]]
ray_direction = [[0, 0, -1], [0, 0, 1]]
result = mesh.intersect(ray_origin, ray_direction, tnear=0, tfar=1000, calculate_reflections=True)
print(result.reflections)

results.reflections is a list of noramlized vectors representing the directions of the reflection of the rays. Only do this if you need the reflections, as it will slow down the intersection tests.

Occlusion Test

If you just care about whether a ray is occluded or not (i.e., you don't care about the intersection point) you can use the occlusion method which is faster than the intersect method and just returns list of booleans.

ray_origin = [[0.1, 0.2, 1], [0.2, 0.1, 1]]
ray_direction = [[0, 0, -1], [0, 0, 1]]
occluded = mesh.occlusion(ray_origin, ray_direction)
print(occluded)

Testing

To run the tests:

pytest

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.